March for Racial Justice and March for Black Women

Sept. 30, 2017 DC

Black Women First! Black Women First! Shouted several thousand people as they marched up Pennsylvania Ave. from the Capitol on September 30.  They were leading two marches, which started at two different points on Capital Hill before joining to march to the Department of Justice on 10th St. There they planned to turn south to go to ...
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March for Racial Justice and March for Black Women

Empire, Epidemics and Visions of Racial Apocalypse

The Precursors of Contemporary Xenophobia

In the numerous violent clashes the book depicts, like the one in which Belgian soldiers stationed in consular offices in India massacre thousands of advancing migrants, murder is depicted in orgiastic fashion while officers recite the victories of great conquerors past to raise morale -- tales of crusading knights slaying ...
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The Political Landscape Post Charlottesville

Where Should Students and Academics Stand?

I had thought that the scariest sight that weekend would be the images of the “Unite the Right” rally. Men can be scary enough on their own. Men with violent ideologies are simply terrifying. The white supremacist rally was toxically masculine, looked utterly fascist and sounded like a historical period ...
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Why Colin Kaepernick Isn’t Working

Football’s Sketchy Labor History

Football may be entertainment for most of us, but it is labor for those who play it, a kind of work that requires as much preparation and discipline as any academic or white collar professional training. In fact, many parents begin fantasizing about an NFL career when their children are ...
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Remembering Romanian Fascism; Worrying About America

Losing Our Moral Compass between Past and Future

Living under Ceausescu was in some ways like living with Donald Trump as president. There was a lot of nationalist swagger, posturing, and boasting about independence from the Soviets. When Ceausescu refused to send troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968 as part of the Warsaw Pact crackdown on student protests, people ...
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Aristotle on Charlottesville

‘Mixed Actions’ and Exercising Judgement on Violence

In the opening movement of book 3 of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that, at bottom, each and every human being is responsible for essentially every action they undertake; put another way: there is nothing a human being does for which they ought not to be praised or blamed. This ...
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Aristotle on Charlottesville

American Idiot

Rethinking Anti-Intellectualism in the Age of Trump

“On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the subjects, and so little among the heads of the Government.” We may fairly assume that Alexis de Tocqueville would be even more surprised if he were to visit today. For while Tocqueville ...
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American Idiot

On Trump’s Response to Charlottesville

Political Encounters and Ideological Evasions

The recent clashes involving “Unite the Right” protestors and counter-protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia, cost Heather Heyer her life. Her death and President Trump’s response to it have dominated the news of late. To recount the salient events, fighting broke out between “Unite the Right” protestors (a group of white nationalists, white ...
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On Trump’s Response to Charlottesville

The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

Truth, Politics and the Bifurcated Sphere of Publics

As I have been reporting on the Wroclaw seminar’s progress, in the shadow of the collapse of democracy in Poland, I have been dumbfounded by events in the U.S. since I got back from Poland. President Trump has threatened nuclear war with North Korea, disregarding all expert opinion about the appropriate ...
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The New Authoritarianism and the Structural Transformation of the Mediated Public Sphere III

Charlottesville and White Supremacy

A statement from the Global Studies program at The New School

The Global Studies program at The New School stands in solidarity with the families, students, community members, and political organizers fighting against white supremacy in Charlottesville, across the United States, and the globe. We condemn the recent acts of racialized terror and brutal assault of a diverse coalition of anti-racist ...
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Charlottesville and White Supremacy